


Sleeping Arrangements

by faithlessone



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Team Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 17:10:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10598442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithlessone/pseuds/faithlessone
Summary: There are not enough beds on the Tempest. That’s just a fact.





	

There are not enough beds on the Tempest.

That’s just a fact.

It’s not a question that keeps her awake at night or anything like that – Cora seems to be in charge of the bunk assignments as far as that term actually applies, which isn’t very far when everyone on the ship seems to basically do what they want – but the sight of her lonely double bed and huge private bedroom does make her feel a little guilty. However, it’s been way too long now to actually ask where people sleep without sounding like a total weirdo.

What she _knows_ is that Jaal’s definitely sleeping in the tech lab and Peebee’s definitely sleeping in the escape pod. She hears snoring coming from the galley most nights that can only be coming from Drack. But that’s all she knows for certain.

She’s _pretty_ sure Liam is sleeping on his couch. There’s a pillow propped on the arm where he sits, and it seems likely. But that isn’t a given, and surely the couch must be giving him back problems if he’s sleeping on it after travelling in the Nomad all day.

She _thinks_ Lexi’s sleeping in the med bay. Possibly. It seems like the sort of thing she’d do.

Which leaves Cora, Vetra, Suvi, Kallo and Gil. Five people.

And only four bunks in the crew quarters.

Over the last few weeks, she’s stealthily searched Gil’s engineering deck, Cora’s bio lab and Vetra’s armoury office, but there’s no sign of mattresses or blankets. Kallo rarely seems to leave the pilot’s seat, but she’s fairly sure he can’t be sleeping there.

There _are_ benches in the meeting room, but they’re solid as rocks and it only takes about five minutes for her ass to go numb just sitting on one, so if any of her crew are sleeping on them she is going to have _words_.

She’s tried spying on the crew quarters late at night after people have said they’re going to bed, or early in the morning before her alarm, but there always seems to be a different empty bunk and two or more of her crew working on their projects when she checks. And after the third time, she started feeling like a complete creep, so she stopped.

She’s also tried searching the ship for secret rooms, but Cora caught her scanning the walls and she was so embarrassed that she made up a story about a possible colony of space hamsters. The fact that there actually turned out to be one living on the Tempest the following week made her very nervous.

So that’s… that.

(She doesn’t think about asking SAM. And SAM, the traitor, never offers the information.)

*

It’s the “couch incident”, as she’s already calling it in her head – the thing where she sort of accidentally-spur-of-the-moment-completely-not-on-purpose slept with Liam – that _almost_ settles for her the question of where Liam is sleeping. When she slips from his arms (reluctantly) after, he picks up the pillow, holding it against him like he still needs something to hug. He just looks a little too much at home for it not to be where he spends at least most of his nights.

It isn’t guaranteed, but given that she can’t actually think of anywhere else he could be sleeping, it’s a better explanation than nothing.

Which isn’t great.

She’s spent a few evenings on that couch, winding down after a tough day, chatting with Liam and whoever else happens to be around, and she’s just been pressed rather firmly into it for a little while, and it’s comfortable, sure. But only for a few hours. Not all night every night for weeks and weeks. Not with the job they do.

But it’s not as if she can actually order him to use a real bed. The only space in a real bed that she _knows_ of is… well, hers. And that’s not a conversation she’s ready to have with him.

Yet.

There’s nothing stopping her leaving an extra blanket in his room though.

Or a couple of new pillows.

(Which she does.)

*

She solves the issue of Lexi a couple of weeks later.

It’s the night after they found Ruth Bekker. She’s fine. They sealed her into the stasis pod, and the Nexus sent a shuttle to pick it up. No one was exposed to anything they didn’t need to be, except Jaal (who can’t catch it anyway) and herself (protected by SAM).

Except she wakes up in the small hours of the morning in a cold sweat, with the sensation of blood dripping from her eyes, her heart pounding hard enough she thinks it might burst from her chest.

SAM’s voice fills their private channel, almost echoing in her head. “You are on the Tempest, in your quarters, Pathfinder. You are safe. You are not infected with TH-314.”

(She hates that she has nightmares often enough that he has a script now for dealing with them.)

But this time his reassurance isn’t working.

Her heart is still pounding. She pushes her sweat-damp hair out of her eyes so she can wipe her face. Her fingers come away wet, but not red, but it still doesn’t help. Her skin is crawling.

“Pathfinder? You need to reduce your heart rate. I can do it for you if you can’t.”

“No!”

Memories of him stopping her heart and killing her fill her head. She doesn’t want that to ever happen again.

She forces herself to breathe slow and steady, pulling herself from the now slightly damp bed. With the touch of a button, she adjusts the opacity of the windows so she can stare out at the stars. They’re still orbiting Kadara. The planet glitters above them. It helps, a little.

“Pathfinder? You are still exhibiting signs of distress. Would you like me to contact one of your crewmates?”

She shakes her head, and the motion makes her a little dizzy. Her nightmare is beginning to dissipate, slowly. The sensation of being trapped in a stasis pod, dying of a horrible disease. She still feels the terror though.

“SAM, paranoia was a symptom of stage two, wasn’t it?”

“You are not infected with TH-314.”

“But it was a symptom?”

“It is. But you are not infected.”

It’s not that she doesn’t believe him. He’s in every cell of her nervous system. If anyone knows what’s going on in her body, it would be him. But having an AI in her head is still too new and strange to trust him.

“Can you call Lexi?”

There’s a brief pause, and then SAM replies. “She is waiting for you in the med bay. Can you get there on your own?”

It takes a minute or two, and she takes every step terrified that someone’s going to come out of the crew quarters or the cargo bay or the catwalk above and spot her, but she makes it.

“Excuse the mess,” Lexi says as she opens the door, and there’s just the slightest edge of drowsiness in her voice. It’s only then that Sara realises there’s a blanket on the bed nearest the cargo bay, and an extra pillow too.

“Urgh, I woke you, didn’t I? I’m sorry!”

Lexi waves her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about that. SAM says you’re anxious about your exposure to the TH-314 virus?”

The moment she says it, Sara realises how stupid it sounds. It was just a nightmare. There was no need to wake anyone else up for her own little freak-out. Then Lexi jabs her with a needle without warning, and she stops feeling apologetic.

“Ow!”

“Sorry.”

(She doesn’t sound sorry. Sara’s fairly sure she actually enjoys poking them all with needles. Makes up for all the times they do something daft and she has to fix them up.)

The doctor does something fiddly with her equipment, and then the screens light up, the screensaver replaced with a complicated-looking graph.

“This is a blood sample from someone with TH-314,” Lexi says, very matter of fact. “Ruth Bekker, actually. Harry sent it to me. You see this spike here?” She taps on the screen, making one of the lines change colour. “That’s the virus.” She taps at her omni-tool and the screen splits, putting up another graph beside the first. “And this is the blood sample I just took from you. You see how there’s no spike on this one?”

Sara isn’t certain she’d be able to identify anything on that graph without Lexi pointing it out, but she gets the gist. No infection. She nods.

“TH-314 has a short incubation period before symptoms start to show, but I’m happy to give you a blood test every day until you’re satisfied, if that’s what it takes.”

Her arm hurts just _thinking_ about that. “It’s fine, Lexi. So I’m okay?”

Lexi taps her omni-tool again and Ruth’s graph disappears, letting Sara’s fill the screen. “Well, your iron and vitamin levels are a little low. Have you been following your nutrition plan?”

(They both know the answer to that one.)

Sara changes the subject. “Uh huh. Sure. Yeah. So… you’re sleeping here?”

Lexi gives her a knowing grin, but lets the matter drop for now. “Yes. This way I’m available for any middle-of-the-night medical emergencies. It also makes it a lot harder for Suvi or Peebee to steal my medical supplies.”

“Handy! And you’re… okay with that?”

“I’m perfectly comfortable, Ryder. I promise to tell you if that changes. How are you feeling now?”

“Better,” Sara admits. Despite her proclivity towards motivational emails and jabbing people with needles, the asari radiates a calm competency that really helps put her mind at ease.

“Then maybe you should go back to bed.”

And that settles that.

*

She fixes the Liam problem a little while later.

After the mess of a mission with Verand, Liam suggests another vid she might like to watch. It’s become a bit of a ritual between them, for tough days and emotional exhaustion. Any time they need a reminder of home, of comfort, they curl up on Liam’s couch and watch a vid.

Tonight though, tonight feels special.

“Mind if we watch it at my place?” she asks.

He grins. “Sure.”

Her vid screen isn’t as big or shiny as his, and the bed isn’t at quite the right angle to watch it easily, but they make do. It’s never actually about the vid.

He sits gingerly on the very edge of her bed, determinedly facing the vid screen, while she goes over to the desk, checking her email one last time, just in case.

“I’ll just be a minute. Make yourself comfortable,” she insists, typing out a couple of quick replies.

When she looks back round, he’s lying down, head buried in her pillows, her bedclothes gathered around him so he resembles a burrito. A very warm, cosy burrito. Grinning, she cues up the vid, replacing her usual screensaver of Nexus blueprints. It’s nothing much, just something light and funny she’s never seen before, but it’s been on his list of things for her to watch. Then she slides onto the bed beside him.

“Mind sharing those?” she asks playfully, pulling at a loose corner of the comforter.

He turns his head, blinking up at her, and then suddenly she is engulfed in a blissfully warm combination of sheets and his arms as he tugs her close, hugging her tight.

“You didn’t tell me your bed was so comfy,” he says, a little sleepily, mostly into her hair.

“Perks of being the pathfinder. Vid screen’s not so good though.”

“Huh?”

He raises his head, looking over her shoulder towards the screen. It looks kinda pathetic when compared to the huge one in the storage room. She supposes whoever fitted out the living areas wasn’t thinking of movie nights in the pathfinder’s quarters.

“Oh, movie. Yeah. You’re sure you haven’t seen this one?”

She shakes her head; the motion made a little difficult by the fact that her cheek is mostly squashed against his chest. (His regrettably-clothed-chest.)

He helps manoeuvre her into a position where they can both see the screen. A little more complicated and awkward than the couch, but (at least judging by the little sounds he’s making and the way he’s more relaxed than she’s ever seen him), much more comfortable.

The vid is… okay. She enjoys the plot, likes the characters, laughs at the bits he laughs at. It was a good choice for tonight. Nothing too heavy. Nothing that could really distract from the wonderful feeling of watching a movie in her bed with Liam pressed up against her.

When the end credits have finally finished, he makes a quiet sound that might be regret or might be guilt or might be relief. She’s not sure. What she is sure of is that he begins to pull away, muttering something about leaving her to get some sleep, and she doesn’t want him to go. She reaches out, grabbing tight to his hand, not letting him get up. It’s the perfect moment. He definitely needs a good night’s sleep, they both do, and that’s something she can help with.

“Stay?”

He tilts his head, asking without asking. Whether she means ‘stay – just for tonight’ or ‘stay – forever’, and she’s not sure which one he wants.

“It doesn’t have to be every night,” she adds, attempting to dodge the question entirely. “I know you like having your own space, and please don’t feel like I’m trying to force you to move in with me just because…”

His finger lands across her lips, and she stops babbling.

“You sure?” he asks, and there’s an edge of barely restrained excitement that makes her wish she’d offered weeks ago. Her whole body relaxes.

“So long as you don’t start using me for my three-hundred-count sheets,” she teases.

He gives her an adorably confused look. “I don’t know what that means, but believe me, I’m more interested in what’s under the sheets. No, wait. On top of? Between?” He scowls. “You. I mean you.”

She laughs. “Smooth, Kosta. Real smooth.”

He leans back against her (their) pillows, and tugs her hand so she falls over him, pulling her into his arms. “You want smooth, Ryder, I’ll show you smooth.”

And that settles that.

*

It takes getting drunk at Movie Night to finally, finally resolve the issue of everyone else’s sleeping arrangements.

When the vid is finished, along with all the snacks and all Lexi’s good alcohol and an inadvisable amount of Drack and Peebee’s terrible alcohol, everyone starts to slope off, presumably towards their beds.

Sara watches Jaal and Peebee disappear up the lift and across the cargo-bay walkway together (giving each-other looks that maybe suggest they might _not_ actually be separating when they get to the tech lab after all). Lexi bids them all goodnight, tells them that she has hangover meds if anyone needs them, and then disappears into the med bay, as she expected. Drack grunts, stumbling past the remaining crew toward the galley, just as she’d guessed. She waits to see where the others are going to go, surprised to see all of them entering the crew quarters.

Then, Liam pulls her towards their cabin, and she goes as easily as usual, but once they’re inside, she finds that she can’t actually quiet her curiosity about the others. This is probably her best chance to find out what’s going on. She tells him she’s forgotten something and she’ll be back in a minute. He grins sleepily and doesn’t question her.

She slips back through the door to the cargo bay and peeks through the window. Four bunks are occupied. Cora and Vetra, Gil and Kallo. Where’s Suvi?

“Ryder? You okay? You’re not going to be sick, are you?”

Suvi’s voice makes her jump, and she’s had _just enough_ alcohol that her filter (what little there is of it around her crewmates) completely dissolves.

“Where do _you_ sleep?”

“Huh?”

“There aren’t enough beds!” she explains, unable to stop herself now she’s started.

“Oh, that. I share with Kallo,” Suvi says, casually. Super casually. Off-hand, even. As if that isn’t a crazy, world-shaking thing to say.

Suvi bursts out laughing, presumably at the shocked look that must be on her face. “Not like _that_ , Ryder. Obviously not like _that_. What do you know about salarian biology?”

Sara frowns, confused about how that explains anything if it’s _not_ the obvious explanation. (Because judging by the looks she’s seen Suvi give Cora when she thinks Cora’s not looking, she thought she had a fairly good handle on the sort of person Suvi would like to have in her bed like _that_.) However, her head is too fuzzy to come up with anything that _isn’t_ the obvious explanation.

“Clearly not as much as I thought I did.”

“They have super-fast metabolisms. That’s why they’re one of the shortest lived species in the galaxy. Well, in the Milky Way. We don’t know what kind of species we’re going to find here. So far all we’ve really seen are the kett and the angara. The angara seem to have life expectancies comparable to humans, relatively, but I’d like to study that further. I need to ask Jaal to point me towards better research materials. Their medical centre was not helpful at all when Lexi asked…”

“Suvi?” Sara interrupts, her head spinning a little. “Salarians?”

“Oh! Yes, sorry. Got side-tracked. I do that. Especially when I’m tipsy. That alcohol was _alcoholic_. The high metabolism means salarians only really need an hour or two of sleep per day. So while you lot are out path-finding, he takes a nap. Then, all night he can work on his projects and figure out the navigation in peace. While we’re sleeping.”

And that settles that.

“And now?”

“I told him to get some rest. I’m going to go up and watch the stars for a bit, sober up, and then when he wakes I’ll go to bed.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Go to bed, Ryder.”

She nods uncertainly, and does as she’s told. Mystery solved. Curiosity sated.

(If they pick anyone else up, she’s going to have to talk to Gil about retrofits.)


End file.
